External Keyboard Issues

My parents have an old Toshiba Satellite 1135-s125 and they are having some problems getting an USB keyboard to work. It powers up but then gives an error stating something like "your usb device is not working properly". They have Windows XP Home with SP2, is this a driver issue or does somebody know of a fix for this?

Thanks for any help with this.

 

mostly probably a conflict in the driver. win xp has a built in driver for generic usb keyboards and installs it often without a glitch. but sometimes flukes do occur so better check the status of the peripheral's interaction with winxp. go to settings>control panel>system>hardware>device manager. see if the external KB is detected but has a yellow exclamation point. if this is the case then you have a conflict. if it is a red x mark then the peripheral is switched off (disabled).

if the KB comes with its own winxp driver install the driver. if it does not have a win xp driver you can either go to the KB manufacturer's website and see if your KB's model has an available win xp driver or workaround for this kind of problem. if it does then download the driver and install. if no driver or solution is proposed, you are facing at least three probable causes:

(1) defective KB. the way to determine this is to get another proven working USB KB and install it in the machine if it works then you have zeroed in on the problem, otherwise,

(2) defective usb port, try changing the usb port being used by the KB. if this works, then you have a bull's eye, if not,

(3) try uninstalling the driver automatically installed by win xp when the KB was attached (go to settings>control panel>system>hardware>device manager right mouse click on the yellow exclamation point of the USB KB and choose uninstall. when uninstall is successful, detach usb kb from computer. shut down machine. when power is off, attach once more usb keyboard (try a different port if this available), then power (restart) computer. it should be able to automatically detect the KB and reinstall the winxp driver. if it works then you're all set if not,

(4) the problem is configuration within windows xp (some corruption somewhere, where? who knows!) the solution is drastic --reformat and then reinstall windows. this step is most inconvenient and time consuming but allows you to dramatically determine exactly whether the problem is OS or hardware based.

 

What kind of keyboard are you using. If its a generic usb then try what eatonop is suggesting but if it is a media type of keyboard like a keyboard that also has different buttons for media player, office programs etc. You may need different drivers than the generic. If you know the type of keyboard than just use google or go to the manufactures site and get the drivers.

 

They are just generic keyboards, without all of that media stuff on them. I think the culprit is a bad ps/2 to usb converter. I tried using it on my laptop (a 1 week old Dell m140) and my desktop and it gave me the same errors. I think that I will try just a cheap usb keyboard and see if it does the same thing. Thanks for the help.

 

the converter is not bad, it's just that you cannot use those for keyboards unless it's specifically for keyboards.

you cannot just take a ps2 > usb converter off a mouse and have it work with a keyboard.

you need to buy a specific converter... they're about 9 bux at fry's last i checked about a month ago, i also see them on ben's bargains every once in a while for very cheap.

most of the ones i've seen are actually split converters so that you can connect a mouse and keyboard at the same time.